My mom was raised super Christian and pro-life, so when she found out she was pregnant, she didn’t even think about having an abortion. Besides, she’d always liked babies, and most girls she knew had babies by the time they were twenty anyway, which wasn’t that far in the future. It was summer and Danny was going to Penn State in the fall, only a few hours’ drive. They hadn’t really talked about it, but she assumed they’d stay together, see each other on the weekends. Now she thought maybe she’d just move up there with him and get her GED after the baby came. She wanted to be an artist, anyway. Did you really need a high school diploma for that?
He was at the Jersey Shore with his family the week she found out about the baby, so she waited till he was back to tell him. They went to their special place on a lake where they liked to park and have sex in the bed of the truck. She meant to tell him as soon as they got there, but he was all over her. Afterward, he said he wanted to break up. He tried to blame it on going to college, but she pulled it out of him that he’d been screwing some other girl behind her back while he was on vacation.
That was when she told him about me. He was upset she hadn’t been careful enough but said he’d drive her to get an abortion (because he was such a nice guy, he said). This gave her an idea. She told him abortions were expensive, and she couldn’t afford it. He said not to worry, that he was sure his parents would give him the money, because he knew they didn’t want her having his baby.
She agreed that would be fine, as long as her parents didn’t find out. She knew they would eventually, since she wasn’t really going to have an abortion. But she’d figure that out later.
As it turned out, she didn’t have time to figure anything out. Danny told his father, who showed up at my mom’s front door with an envelope of five thousand dollars’ hush money for the abortion and a warning to her parents that this was all they’d get from them. Ruthanne and Fred were shocked, embarrassed, insulted, but most of all furious with my mother, not only for getting pregnant, but even worse, intending to have an abortion. They refused the cash and kicked her out.
So she had a friend drive her and her garbage bag of clothes over to Danny’s to collect the five thousand dollars, then to the bus stop, where she bought a ticket to Miami and never looked back.
She hasn’t been a perfect mom, but I know how much she loves me, and up until now she’s managed to hold it in the road.
She gathers the blanket around her and kisses me on the head as she stands. “I’m gonna do better, Phee,” she promises. “I just…He’s giving us so much money, it’s hard to say no.”
“But can’t you do—what you do—without drugs?”
She sighs. “It’s complicated. If I can just stick it out with him another month or two, I’ll have enough for a down payment on an apartment of our own. Something nice, that we can fix up just the way we like.”
An apartment of our own! No scary landlord, no leaks that never get fixed or nasty carpet or roaches. But not if she has to do drugs to get it.
“Just please, Mom, please don’t do drugs anymore.”
She nods. “I have to get in the shower. You wanna walk down to the 7-Eleven and get food and stuff?”
She slides open the closet door and pushes aside the pile of old clothes that hides the safe. I’ve never tried to learn the code because she doesn’t want me to have it, and I’ve always trusted her to take care of me. But I know when people are doing drugs you can’t trust them anymore. I watch over her shoulder as she turns the dial. Seventeen. Thirty-five. Twenty-six. Four.
Seventeen, thirty-five, twenty-six, four. I repeat the numbers in my head as she opens the door. It’s not a big safe, but it’s completely full of stacks of cash, piled on top of one another. I have no idea how much money it is, but it’s a lot. Seventeen, thirty-five, twenty-six, four. She hands me forty bucks and shuts the door.
“Thanks,” I say, pocketing the cash. “Need anything?”
She shrugs. “You know better than I do, little bird.”
The minute she steps into the bathroom, I run to where I dropped my backpack, get out a pen, and write the code on the back page of my math notebook. Heart pounding, I grab an umbrella and step out into the pouring rain.
By the time I return from the store, she’s gone. I lock the bedroom door in case she comes back and kneel in front of the safe. Seventeen, thirty-five, twenty-six, four. I don’t even need to look at the notebook.
Part II:Atmospheric Pressure
April 12, 2019Spotlight OnlineWhere Has Stella Rivers Been?
It’s no secret that famed actress and party-girl Stella Rivers had a breakdown (or three) shortly after her split from Cole Power, but where has she been in the decade since? Spotlight learned new details about what she’s been up to recently, and it’s not what you might think!
But first…a timeline:
1989: A ten-year-old Stella Rivers appears in her first television show, Meg & Co, in which she plays the spunky title character.
1997: Eighteen-year-old Rivers plays the star-making role of Mary Elizabeth in Under the Blue Moon.
2000: Rivers does the first of three
